Tuesday, August 28, 2007

BASSEM EID AND BENJAMIN POGRUND

The logic of the attached VOC report (and The FXI obviously subscribes to it) is that Bassem Eid and Pogrund are spokesmen for "apartheid" Israel. They must therefore be stopped from putting forward the "Zionist / apartheid" viewpoint. It seems that only those who believe in Israel's destruction should be allowed on The SABC. This is "freedom of expression" as far as The FXI is concerned. According to this logic there can be no debate on The SABC re whether Israel is actually "apartheid". One would have to conclude that The Hamas viewpoint is the only one that The SABC should be allowed to broadcast. I wonder, however, whether Hamas should also be allowed to broadcast it's anti-semitic charter on The SABC? Or would Jane Duncan (exec director of FXI) think that would be a step too far? Perhaps The FXI can now clarify its position on whether Hamas's anti-semitic charter should be broadcast on The SABC ?

"According to the PSG and PSC, during the Apartheid era the SABC was partial to the Israeli state and to Zionism. “As South Africans who fought for a democratic dispensation in South Africa, we expect that our public broadcaster will stop putting forward the Zionist viewpoint and will end the broadcaster’s bias in favour of the illegal Israeli occupation. Did the world’s media insist on ‘balance’ whenever they interviewed a member of South Africa’s liberation movements? Did they also insist on the presence of a spokesperson on behalf of Apartheid South Africa?

The public broadcaster in a society that has just overcome legislated racism and is struggling to throw off the shackles of centuries of dispossession and of poverty must be on the side of those who are victims of racism, colonialism and apartheid and cannot pretend to want to be balanced. When faced with the reality of an oppressive apartheid regime with vast resources for propaganda, the SABC must give the stronger voice to the oppressed and subjugated,” the joint statement signed by Mercia Andrews, Makoma Lekalakala and Salim Vally concluded." VOC